Where it began

I grew up watching the Polish painter Marian Michalik work, long before I learned how to paint myself.

His studio introduced me to art through observation, silence, patience and light. Today, I have the honour of working at his easel and owning the final painting he completed.

My first painting teacher, Magda Snarska, encouraged me to trust observation, intuition and gesture rather than pursue perfection. These early experiences shaped the way I still approach painting: as a process of attention, sensitivity and continuous discovery.

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Movement, discipline and gesture

Long before art became my profession, I trained and competed in dressage at a professional level.

Dressage is built on communication between horse and rider. It gave me a deep understanding of rhythm, discipline, precision and balance — not as something fixed, but as a relationship requiring sensitivity, trust and constant adjustment.

Ballet and dance later introduced another way of reading the body in space. I became interested not in reproducing choreography, but in the tension, emotion and energy contained within a gesture.

These experiences continue to return in my paintings, where figures emerge, overlap, dissolve and transform. Movement may be suspended, but it is never truly absent.

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Between art and space

I began my studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław and continued at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, specialising in interior and exhibition design.

Architecture taught me that beauty has to work. Every visual decision must respond not only to composition, but also to people, function, scale and context.

A scholarship at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich placed me within an international artistic environment and strengthened my belief that art can communicate long before language does.

As my own creative practice and design studio developed, I also wanted to understand how artistic ideas could grow into sustainable projects and organizations. I completed postgraduate studies in Management for Creators, Artists and Cultural Animators at the Faculty of Management, University of Warsaw, followed by the Kompendium MBA programme at Quest Change Managers, which broadened my understanding of business strategy, leadership and managing creative ventures.

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Balance and dialogue

My long-term collaboration with the sculptor Jerzy Kędziora profoundly influenced the way I understand balance.

His balancing sculptures exist through tension, risk and continuous adjustment. They revealed that equilibrium does not mean stillness or certainty. It is an active state, created by opposing forces that remain present.

My work with the A–I–R programme at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art gave me another essential perspective: the importance of international dialogue between artists, designers, cultures and disciplines.

It confirmed that many of the most meaningful ideas appear between established categories rather than within a single one.

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Creating places for art

For over eighteen years, I have been developing Artkam Design and creating interiors in which art is considered from the beginning rather than added at the end.

I design through function, proportion, light, material, movement and atmosphere. The aim is not only to create a beautiful interior, but a place that supports everyday life and allows people, objects and artworks to exist naturally together.

My work as a painter affects the way I compose space. My architectural practice, in turn, influences how I build tension, scale and hierarchy within a painting.

This dialogue became the foundation of my approach:

Interiors for art. Art for interiors.

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Artdorre

Originally Pinkstern later Artdorre began with a playful marketing idea and a barn-door collection created for Mantion — a wordplay on the concept of doors to art.

The name stayed because the idea quickly became larger than the original product.

Today, Artdorre is developing into an umbrella brand connecting the different areas of my practice: interiors, painting, objects, doors, craftsmanship, technology, virtual environments and creative collaborations.

It creates space for projects that do not belong to only one category. An interior may begin with a painting. An artwork may influence a material, a colour palette or a lighting concept. A functional object may become part of a larger artistic composition.

What began with a door is now beginning to spread its wings.

This change does not erase the history of Artkam. It carries that history forward into a structure that better reflects the way I work today.

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Connecting Worlds

I do not divide my work into separate professions.

I am an interior architect and a painter, but above all I am interested in what happens between disciplines — in the moment when a painting changes the way we experience a room, when light becomes part of an artwork, or when architecture creates space for emotion.

Art influences the way I design interiors. Architecture changes the way I construct a painting. Movement, balance and light connect them both.

View full artistic CV →

Because Connecting Worlds has always been the only thing I have ever really done.